River Suck, Galway, Roscommon – Oil Painting

We travelled to East Galway over the weekend to be present at the Christening of James, one of our grandchildren. He is the happiest little boy, always smiling. After heavy rain overnight, thankfully the rain stopped during the day, and the little ones could go out and run around and play in the puddles of water. Great fun was had by all, and the mothers thought this was great (yeah!).

The river in the painting forms the boundary between counties Galway and Roscommon. Its normally less than 10 meters across, but after recent heavy rain it looked as if the whole countryside was a lake. It would be very difficult to know where Galway stops and Roscommon starts. The land is very flat here and its close to the river Shannon which is also prone to flooding the countryside after heavy rain.

The scene presented itself as we were travelling home, just before sunset. I can’t resist a beautiful sky and couldn’t wait to get painting while it was fresh in my mind. The scene was all about the sky and the reflections on the flood waters but this alone does not make a good painting. Simply recording this natural phenomenon is not enough. I constructed a scene to allow me to indulge myself and include the sky. To heighten the drama, the composition is on a knife edge.

Remember I wrote about composition in a previous post, the see-saw of left and right side balancing. The traditional method of creating drama or tension is to have a vertical rather than horizontal shape to the painting and include diagonal lines in the design. Well neither of these methods would suit this scene. I placed the sun a little off centre and then put the boats a little to the other side. So all the important bits are in a narrow space. This is in effect what happens in a vertical painting. In planing the design I also included diagonal lines in the sky (the shafts of light) and the lines are echoed in the shape of the mid and foreground.

The colours are: Burnt Sienna & Raw Umber (red), Raw Sienna (yellow) and French Ultramarine. Plus, of course, black and white. There is a lot of work in the sky to achieve the movement. Of the hour and a half to complete the painting, the sky alone took nearly an hour. The video will show the buildup of shapes and the efforts in creating a random chaos in the clouds. I find it easier to make it up as I go along, taking advantage of the shapes created in the earlier ‘mad’ stage of underpainting.

Absolutely stunning. A really eerie atmosphere you have created here. This immediately reminded me of the work of a textile artist whose gallery I visited a few years ago when she was in the Buttermarket in Enniskillen, although I don’t think she’s still there – Lorna Smyth. The interesting thing about her work is that she does all her sketches on location in Connemara – presumably not far from where you painted this?!

This is brilliant and is definitely my favorite. I really like how loose and calm your brush strokes are. And along with the limited palette you use in all your paintings the harmony and emotion radiates from them. It really gives the viewer a great impression of what it may have felt like that day in the East Galway area.

Petite Pursuits
I’m an Irish girl who has finally given in to an unexplored love/obsession with dolls houses and miniatures. My blog journey to document, share with others, and most of all LEARN, starts here.

The Nest
I live in East Galway, Ireland. I am an artist, homeopath and mother to our four boys and little girl, and wife to Fergal. With our little hairy dog, too many cats, hens, cockerel and two little white ducks, we home educate our children.